GINO SEVERINI AND THE SYMBOLIST AESTHETICS OF HIS FUTURIST DANCE IMAGERY, SHANNON N. PRITCHARD. (Under the Direction of Evan Firestone)

Transcription

1 GINO SEVERINI AND THE SYMBOLIST AESTHETICS OF HIS FUTURIST DANCE IMAGERY, by SHANNON N. PRITCHARD (Under the Direction of Evan Firestone) ABSTRACT This thesis examines Gino Severini s dance imagery produced between 1910 and 1915 and its relationship to late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Symbolism. It is proposed in this paper that the influence of Symbolism, including the phenomenon of synesthesia, was a consistent presence throughout Severini s artistic production during this period. Surrounded by artists and writers within the neo-symbolist milieu of Paris, Severini was introduced to Symbolist literature and contemporary philosophy, both of which influenced his approach to Futurism. The resultant amalgamation of Symbolist and Futurist aesthetic theories is analyzed in the context in which these dance images were produced. Taking into consideration Severini s personal and artistic relationships, along with his theoretical writings, a more complete understanding of his Futurist works from this period is possible. INDEX WORDS: Gino Severini, Severini, Futurism, Symbolism, Dance

2 GINO SEVERINI AND THE SYMBOLIST AESTHETICS OF HIS FUTURIST DANCE IMAGERY, by SHANNON N. PRITCHARD B.A.F.A., The University of New Mexico, 1999 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree MASTER OF ARTS ATHENS, GEORGIA 2003

3 2003 Shannon N. Pritchard All Rights Reserved

4 GINO SEVERINI AND THE SYMBOLIST AESTHETICS OF HIS FUTURIST DANCE IMAGERY, by SHANNON N. PRITCHARD Major Professor: Evan Firestone Committee: Janice Simon Shelley Zuraw Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2003

5 DEDICATION I dedicate this thesis to my mother, Marian Pritchard, for without her unwavering support and understanding this would not have been possible. I also wish to dedicate this work to my father, Wayne Pritchard, my grandparents Ruth and Wallace Pritchard, and my aunt Becky, all of whom have been a constant source of encouragement, laughter and cheer when I needed it most. iv

6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Evan Firestone for his enthusiasm and guidance throughout the research and writing process. His insight and continuous support inspired me to produce a work that would be a meaningful contribution to Futurist scholarship. I would also like to thank Dr. Shelley Zuraw and Dr. Janice Simon for their participation as members of my committee. Their comments and suggestions provided valuable additions to the text. Finally, I express my appreciation to the entire University of Georgia Art History faculty for their unwavering dedication to the advancement of their graduate students. v

7 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS... v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS...vi INTRODUCTION... 1 CHAPTER 1 CULTURAL LIFE IN PARIS FUTURIST MANIFESTOS AND EARLY FUTURISM PLASTIC ANALOGIES OF DYNAMISM: MANIFESTOS AND IMAGERY...55 CONCLUSION...75 ILLUSTRATIONS...79 BIBLIOGRAPHY vi

8 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Gino Severini, Claudine at the Moulin de la Galette, Gino Severini, The Boulevard, Gino Severini, Memories of a Journey, Gino Severini, Dancers at the Monico, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Le Moulin de la Galette, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Un Coin du Moulin de la Galette, Pablo Picasso, Moulin de la Galette, Kees van Dongen, Moulin de la Galette, Gino Severini, Dance of the Pan Pan at the Monico, Robert Delaunay, Eiffel Tower, Fernand Léger, The Wedding, Gino Severini, Dynamic Hieroglyph of the Bal Tabarin, Félix Vallotton, The Waltz, Georges Braque, Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a Mantelpiece, Gino Severini, Blue Dancer, Gino Severini, White Dancer, Gino Severini, Dancer at Pigalle, Fernand Léger, Woman in Blue, Reutlinger photograph, Loïe Fuller Dance of the Serpents, vii

9 20. Reutlinger photograph, Loïe Fuller in Butterfly Dance Costume, ca Per Krohg and Lucy Vidil, Modern Dance Almanac, Gino Severini, Bear Dance at the Moulin Rouge, Gino Severini, Argentine Tango, Georges Seurat, La Chahut, Gino Severini, Form of a Dancer in the Light, Gino Severini, Waltz, Pablo Picasso, Ma Jolie, Robert Delaunay, Simultaneous Contrast: Sun and Moon, Gino Severini, Sea = Dancer, Gino Severini, Sea = Dancer (Guggenheim), Photograph, Loie Fuller, Pierre Roche, Loie Fuller: Fire Dance, ca Gino Severini, Sea = Dancer + Bouquet of Flowers, Gino Severini, Bear Dance = Sailboat + Vase of Flowers, Gino Severini, Dancer = Helix = Sea, Gino Severini, Armored Train in Action, Gino Severini, Correspondence Between Music and Color, viii

10 INTRODUCTION Gino Severini s career as an artist began with his arrival in Rome in 1900 and lasted nearly sixty-six years. His ability to assimilate various artistic developments, while at the same time maintaining his own personal aesthetic, marks Severini s distinctiveness as an artist. As an Italian Futurist living in Paris during the height of avant-garde activity, particularly during the years 1910 through 1915, Severini occupied a unique position. Simultaneously part of the new Italian art movement, yet removed from it geographically, he operated as the lone representative of Futurism in the artistic capital of the world. This situation allowed him to pursue his artistic goals with almost unfettered freedom, applying Futurist doctrines to a variety of artistic styles in an atmosphere of continuous experimentation and transformation. In 1910, Severini embarked on a series of works exploring the theme of the dance and it quickly became a unifying subject for him during the years leading up to World War I. During those five years Severini executed over one hundred works in different media depicting dancers in a variety of settings. 1 Not since Henri Toulouse-Lautrec had an artist immersed himself so completely in the urban nightlife of cabarets and dance halls. Severini s approach departed considerably, however, both stylist ically and conceptually, from that of his predecessor. His representations of dancers and nightclub habitués range from a quasi-documentary style recording the latest dances to nearly abstract images based on modernist aesthetics and contemporary philosophies. Although the subject of dancers appears at first to be diametrically opposed to Futurist 1 For a complete overview of Severini s career see: Daniela Fonti, Gino Severini Catalogo Ragionato (Milan: Edizione Phillipe Daverio, 1988). 1

11 doctrine, Severini used the image of the dancer as an expression of his personal vision of Futurism. Dance as subject matter was familiar to many avant-garde artists during the early twentieth century, especially in an atmosphere rich with the memory of artists such as Edgar Degas, Georges Seurat and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. From the cabaret and dancehall scenes of Kees van Dongen and Pablo Picasso, to the utopian dance images of Henri Matisse, Georges Roualt s morally condemned dancers, Marie Laurencien s sweetly innocent figures and the twisted, expressionistic women of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, many artists found a means of personal expression through dance. However, no artist utilized the theme of dance and the image of the dancer in a manner comparable to Gino Severini. For him, the dancer became the quintessential interpreter of modern life, reflecting the fast paced urban environment of modern Paris while at the same time giving physical shape to transcendental ideas. Throughout this five-year period ( ), Severini consistently pursued the symbolist notion of synesthesia, recreating the sensations he experienced through color, line, and form. At the same time he strove to deliver the Futurist promise of placing the viewer at the center of the canvas and creating works that required the active intervention of the outside world. 2 In this sense, Severini echoed the symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé in his choice of dance as representative of the Idea, for as Mallarmé wrote in 1886:...only the Dance can translate the fleeting and the sudden into the Idea. To see this is to see the entire absolutely the entire spectacle of the future. 3 2 Gino Severini, The Plastic Analogies of Dynamism, in Futurist Manifestos, ed. Umbro Apollonio (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts Publications 2001), Mallarmé quoted in Marianne Martin, The Futurist Gesture: Futurism and the Dance, Kunst, Musik, Schauspiel 2, International Congress of the History of Art (CIHA), (Vienna September 1983), , esp. 2

12 The paintings and works on paper produced by Severini during this period are sophisticated compositions derived from a variety of artistic, literary, and philosophical sources. Enthusiastically joining forces with the Italian Futurists in early 1910, he embraced their goal of resuscitating Italian art through the glorification of a modern life made possible by technological progress. However, through his contacts with neosymbolist groups in Paris, the ideas of late nineteenth-century Symbolism were also influential to Severini. As a consequence, clear interpretation of these works has been problematic in that they juxtapose a modern, if abstract, documentary description of daily life with a symbolist desire for transcendence. It is precisely this tension between Futurism and Symbolism that was never completely resolved in the eyes of the artist or viewer, and thus, each work can be interpreted as a complex set of ideas, informed by past artistic traditions, while at the same time expressive of a desire to break away from those very traditions. Scholars have previously addressed the influence of Mallarmé s writings and Jules Romains Unanimist poetry in Severini s Futurist works. However, add itional analysis is warranted in order to fully understand the ways in which these ideas informed Severini s imagery. In addition t o Mallarmé and Romains, another important influence on Severini s works was the ideas of the philosopher Henri Bergson. Bergson s theories of memory and durée have been analyzed in relation to Futurist aesthetic in general, but they are seldom discussed in the context of Severini s dance imagery. Moreover, Severini s wide range of personal contacts within the Parisian literary and symbolist groups began almost immediately upon his arrival in the city in 1906 and lasted 97. For complete text see: Oeuvres Complètes de Stéphane Mallarmé, eds. Henri Mondor and G. Jean- Aubry (Paris: Librairie Gallimard, 1945),

13 throughout his career. As an intelligent and literate artist, a strong argument can be made that these relationships were decisive in his retention of nineteenth-century Symbolist ideas. Furthermore, the foundation of Italian Futurism was rooted in Symbolist theory, thereby allowing Severini the creative freedom to unite his interest in the modernity of city life with his interests in Symbolist aesthetic theories. The influence of Symbolist literature on Severini s dance imagery has been addressed in some scholarship, but little has been said about the implied presence of music within these works. Synesthesia, the phenomenon of color and form evoking sound, was an important concept in nineteenth-century Symbolist aesthetics and is an equally essential component of Severini s artistic theor y and production. Derived from symbolist literature and visually expressed by works such as Edward Munch s The Scream (1895), synesthesia remained a vital component of early twentieth-century art. Evidence of this is found in the Futurist manifestos, Severini s personal writings and correspondence, and in contemporary neo-symbolist writings. It is evident that Severini understood that a close relationship between music and painting was a key component of avant-garde art. A brief summary of the significant texts addressing Gino Severini s career reveals a diverse range of interpretations regarding the extent of Symbolist literary and aesthetic influence on his Futurist paintings during the years 1910 to The most recent 4 The primary texts consulted for this study are: Marianne Martin, Futurist Art and Theory , (Oxford: Clarendon Press: 1968); Marianne Martin, The Futurist Gesture: Futurism and the Dance, Kunst, Musik, Schauspiel 2, International Congress of the History of Art (CIHA), (Vienna September 1983), ; Severini and The Dance: , exhibition catalogue, ed. Daniela Fonti, (Venice: Peggy Guggenheim Museum, 2001); Daniela Fonti, Gino Severini Catalogo Ragionato (Milan: Edizione Phillipe Daverio, 1988); Piero Pacini, G ino Severini, L Unanimismo di Jules Romains e le Danze Cromatiche di Loïe Fuller I, Antichità Viva 29, no. 6 (1990), 44-53; and Piero Pacini, Gino Severini, L Unanimismo di Jules Romains e le Danze Cromatiche di Loïe Fuller II, Antichità Viva 30, nos. 4-5 (1991),

14 exhibition on Gino Severini was the 2001 exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in Venice, which specifically addressed his dance inspired works from 1909 to The Guggenheim exhibition provided much needed insight into this aspect of Severini s career. Scholars generally agree that a symbolist subtext is present to varying degrees in Severini s work. The area in which disagreement often arises is the issue of precisely where and when these literary influences are discernable and whether they embody a continuous presence within his dance œuvre or only appear intermittently. Marianne Martin s seminal 1968 text on Futurism laid the groundwork for future generations of scholarship in the area of Italian Futurism in general, and specifically on Severini s symbolist tendencies. Mar tin re-established the literary connections between the artist s early Futurist pain tings and the Unanimist poetry of Jules Romains. 6 The ideas of Unanimism, which celebrated modern city life and the collective consciousness created among its inhabitant s, nightclub performers and spectators, were identified by Martin in works such as The Boulevard (Fig. 2), Yellow Dancers, and Dance of the Pan Pan at the Monico (Fig. 9), all of In her later research, Martin re-explored the affinities between Severini and Romains, and suggested also that the influence of Mallarmé is discernable in a few select 5 The exhibition, Severini and The Dance: , was held at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice, Italy, May 26 - October 28, Martin, Futurist Art and Theory, 102. This association had been noted at the time of the first Futurist Exhibition in Paris in 1912, when the art critic and poet Guillaume Apollinaire wrote:...the titles of their [the Futurists] pictures seem frequently taken from the vocabulary of Unanimism... See: Leroy C. Breunig, ed., Apollinaire on Art: Essays and Reviews , trans. Susan Suleiman (New York: The Viking Press, 1972), Martin, Futurist Art and Theory, 96-97, 102; and Marianne Martin, Futurism, Unanimism and Apollinaire, Art Journal 28, no. 3 (1969), ; esp Martin also tangentially relates Memories of a Journey (Fig. 3) to Unanimism suggesting that the water well at the center of the canvas may be Severini s way of symbolically representing himself in the image. The idea of placing the spectator, or reader, at the center of a work was a goal common to both the Futurists and to Jules Romains. 5

15 works dating from Martin focused on two works in particular, the Dynamic Hieroglyph of the Bal Tabarin (Fig. 11), and Dancer at Pigalle (Fig. 16). 9 Following these two paintings, she also suggested that Mallarméan or symbolist associations are evident in Severini s later dance imagery produced during his Plastic Analogy period of , such as Dancer = Sea of 1914 (Fig. 26). In these works Martin pointed out that the influence of both Mallarmé and the American dancer Loïe Fuller are present. 10 Two articles published by Piero Pacini in 1991 deal specifically with the relationship between Severini s dance imagery and Unanimism. 11 Pacini argues that the influence of Unanimism is present in most of Severini s works executed between 1910 and 1915 and in this view he appears to be singular amongst scholars. Founded primarily on a series of unpublished notes written by Severini prior to World War I, along with the author s personal correspondence with the artist s widow, Jeanne, Pacini argues for a fairly direct line of influence from poetry to painting. The articles also confirm that Severini was well versed in Unanimism despite his later claim that he was unaware of the significance of the term unanimist at this time. 12 Furthermore, the artist and poet were apparently on friendly terms with each other as they both frequented La Closerie de Lilas and lived in the same neighborhood. One of the most significant revelations in Pacini s articles is a comment made by Romains regarding the 1912 Futurist exhibition at the 8 Martin, Futurism, Unanimism, ; and Martin, The Futu rist Gesture, Martin, The Futurist Gesture, Ibid., Pacini, Gino Severini, L Unanimismo I, 44-53; and Pacini, Gino Severini, L Unanimismo II, Gino Severini, Symbolisme Plastique et Symbolisme Littéraire, in Gino Severini Ecrits sur l art, , with a preface by Serge Fauchereau, (Paris: Editions Cercle d Art, 1987), 68. Sev erini states in this 1916 article that he did not understand the implication of Raoul Dufy s co mment that his work was Unanimist in tone. See also: Pacini, Gino Severini, L Unanimismo...II, 48 and 53 n.6, which contains a portion of a letter written to Pacini by Jeanne Severini in 1979 providing some details of their relationship: Gino conobbe Jules Romains al momento della mostra da Bernheim, e Romains scrisse (o disse) che la pittura di Gino era unanimista. 6

16 Bernheim Jeune Gallery. According to Jeanne Severini, as Romains stood before Severini s paintings, he stated that he was not able to a spire to more elegant or spontaneous visualizations of his unanimist imagery. 13 Two other texts important to Severini scholarship are Daniela Fonti s 1988 Catalogo Ragionato and the accompanying exhibition catalogue to the 2001 Guggenheim exhibition, for which she was curator. The entries in the Catalogo Ragionato provide brief descriptions, along with exhibition and bibliographic information. Due to the sheer volume of works documented by Fonti, the Catalogo is an indispensable resource for issues regarding chronology and provenance. In her catalogue essay for the Guggenheim exhibition, Fonti also addresses certain areas of Symbolist influence found in Severini s dance imagery. Fonti agrees with the view that there are Symbolist elements evident in the Pan Pan, but she maintains that symbolism was absent from Severini s works by the time he painted the Bal Tabarin. 14 Her essay focuses primarily on Mallarméan connections which she finds in a few key works from and in the later plastic analogy paintings of 1914, where she also finds evidence of the influence of Loïe Fuller Pacini, Gino Severini, L Unanimismo I, 48. The only work that Pacini does not address is the Bal Tabarin, which was arguably the most important and well-known work of Severini s during this time. The reason for this is not know, but perhaps there is no mention of this painting in the unpublished notes that Pacini addresses in his two articles. 14 Daniela Fonti, Gino Severini. The Dance, in Severini and The Dance: , exhibition catalogue, ed. Daniela Fonti, (Venice: Peggy Guggenheim Museum, 2001), 11-31; esp. 20. Interestingly, however, Fonti finds no conceptual difference between the Pan Pan and the Bal Tabarin, which in itself suggests that both works would contain elements of symbolism. 15 Fonti, The Dance, Fonti sees the presence of Unanimism in Severini s work only up to The Boulevard (1911), where she suggests that this influence all but disappears from his work after this point, thereby negating any Unanimist reading of his large dance compositions such as Pan Pan and Bal Tabarin. Fonti also suggests that references to Mallarmé s writings only become manifest in Severini s work from mid-1912 to 1913 and in the plastic analogy paintings of However, she contradicts this argument by her statement that Mallarmé s metaphor of chandeliers being symbolic of theater can be read in Haunting Dancer, which she dates to See: Fonti, Catalogo,

17 This paper seeks to examine the various components of Severini s dance images by focusing primarily on the tension between the divergent impulses of Symbolism and Futurism that inform his aesthetic. Building upon the analysis and interpretations of the aforementioned scholars, this paper will show that elements of Symbolism were not only present in Severini s work produced during 1910 and 1915, but were significant factors i n his choice of subject matter, composition and his own artistic theory. Severini joined Italian Futurism eager to take up the call for a new direction in the history of Italian art, and yet he always remained somewhat at a distance ideologically from his Futurist colleagues. Living in Paris at the peak of avant-garde activity was highly stimulating for Severini and allowed him the freedom to synthesize a broad range of philosophical, artistic and literary concepts. 16 Even Marinetti s 1911 diatribe agains t Futurism s intellectual forefathers, in which he declared his hatred for the great Symbolist geniuses Edgar Poe, Baudelaire, Mallarmé and Verlaine, did not dissuade Severini from an interest in symbolism or from forging his own path within Futurism, incorporating elements from the very same forefathers Although Severini was living in Paris, he traveled to Italy regularly, with some trips of rather extended length. 17 F.T. Marinetti, Le Futurisme (Paris: 1911; reprint with a preface by Giovanni Lista, Lausanne: L Age d Homme, 1980), 117. This text is also quoted in Martin, Futurist Art and Theory,

18 CHAPTER 1 CULTURAL LIFE IN PARIS During the first two decades of the twentieth century Paris was the epicenter of artistic creativity, cultural, and philosophical discourse. The relentless advance of technology made for a new, modern lifestyle that was rapidly subsuming nineteenthcentury provinciality. Technological advances included electric lighting, telephones, the wireless telegraph, automobiles, airplanes and faster transatlantic ocean liners. 1 Poets, artists and writers converged on the City of Light at the turn of the century, entering an atmosphere saturated with the contradictory feelings of excitement and anxiety, isolation and community, modernity mixed with the remnants of provinciality. Within this energetic environment Severini forged several key relationships that were instrumental in his development as an avant-garde artist. These relationships heightened his interest and knowledge of symbolist notions, which he later incorporated into his vibrant images of dancers. Prior to his arrival in Paris, Severini had been in Rome working under the tutelage of Giacomo Balla, already a successful painter and a later Futurist colleague. 2 Balla showed Severini the works of Italian Divisionist painters such as Giovanni Segantini, 1 Stephen Kern, Culture of Time and Space (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 113. Kern s book provides a fascinating account of the rapidity of technological development and how it played out in the early twentieth century. For example, Kern cites the following statistics: In 1900 there were approximately 3,000 cars in France and by 1913 that number had increased to 100,000; a land speed record of 200 km/hr was set in 1906 and electric lighting was in full use by Severini left Cortona for Rome in 1900 with his mother, where he lived until He and Umberto Boccioni met Balla in

19 Gaetano Previati and Pellizza da Volpedo. 3 Balla also introduced Severini to French Neo-Impressionism, the aesthetic foundation of Italian Divisionism. 4 Using line and color to evoke mood and ambiance, Italian Divisionist paintings often contained symbolic as well as socialist overtones, projecting quasi-heroic or mythical representations of the daily struggles borne by the common man. Within a few years, Severini would take up the theme of daily life, replacing Italian working class laborers with Parisian dancers, who, for Severini, personified the modernity of life experienced in the urban landscape of Paris. Severini arrived in Paris in October 1906 and by early 1907 was living in an apartment in Montmartre located in the courtyard next to Aurélian Lugné-Poë s symbolist theater, Théâtre de L Œuvre. 5 Through his proximity to the Théâtre de L Œuvre, Severini was exposed to a wide range of writers and artists, both past and present. He had the opportunity to see theatrical productions staged by the theater, including dance performances by Isadora Duncan. 6 An example of Severini s work at this time, Claudine at the Moulin de la Galette (1907) (Fig. 1), documents his early interest in the denizens of Parisian nightlife. Reminiscent of Toulouse-Lautrec in subject matter and style, the figure of Claudine is set against a background loosely constructed 3 Coincidentally, Previati and Segantini would be singled out in the 1910 Manifesto of Futurist Painters as important Italian artists producing works destined to honor their fatherland. See: Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini, Manifesto of Futurist Painters, in Futurist Manifestos, ed. Umbro Apollonio (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts Publications 2001), Balla had been to Paris in 1900 where he stayed for seven months and had the opportunity to see Neo- Impressionist paintings, including works by Seurat and Signac. It was on Balla s advice that Severini immediately sought out and studied these works upon his arrival in Paris. 5 Gino Severini, The Life of a Painter: The Autobiography of Gino Severini, trans. by Jennifer Franchina, (originally published as La Vita di un Pittore, 1946); reprint with an introduction by Anne Coffin Hanson, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), Daniela Fonti, Gino Severini. The Dance, in Severini and The Dance: , exhibition catalogue, ed. Daniela Fonti, (Venice: Peggy Guggenheim Museum, 2001), 11-31; 14. Although he was familiar with Duncan s dance, her classically inspired choreography did not influence Severini s dance imagery. The technological innovations of Loïe Fuller and her physically transforming dances were more in line with his Futurist and Symbolist ideas at the time. 10

20 with long straw-like strokes. Although the portrait lacks the deep sense of pathos of his predecessor s works, Severini manages to capture an underlying melancholy through the directness of his representation. His familiarity with Toulouse-Lautrec s work was probably acquired from Lugné-Poë, who was a friend of the famous Montmartrean painter of La Goulue and Jane Avril. It is also likely that one of Severini s first encounters with Mallarmé s symbolist literature was through Lugné -Poë, who had been a regular participant in Mallarmé s mardis in the late nineteenth century. 7 Over the course of the next two years, Severini worked on set designs for the theater, following in the footsteps of Nabis artists such as Edouard Vuillard and Maurice Denis, and by 1909, was regularly contributing illustrations to Lugné-Poë s journal, L Œuvre. 8 Denis, also a regular participant in Mallarmé s mardis, was by this time a respected art critic and theoretician, publishing essays on symbolist and synthetist art theory. 9 A passage from Denis 1909 essay, De Gauguin et de Van Gogh au Classicisme, reads as a harbinger of Severini s own Futurist theory of a few years later:...the emotions or spiritual states caused by any spectacle bring to the imagination of the artist symbols or plastic 7 Pamela A. Genova, Symbolist Journals. A Culture of Correspondence (England: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2002), 93; 165. Genova provides an informative account of the culture of Symbolist publications and their relationship to art in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century. Those who attended Mallarmé s mardis (Tuesday) evenings included Gustave Kahn, Félix Fénéon, Lugné-Poë, Toulouse- Lautrec, and Edouard Vuillard. 8 Daniela Fonti, Gino Severini Catalogo Ragionato (Milan: Edizione Phillipe Daverio, 1988), 96. Lugné- Poë wrote an anonymous article to help publicize Severini s work, entitled L Atelier d un cam arade, published in L Oeuvre (November 13, 1909). It should also be noted that Lugné-Poë and Paul Fort were associated with each other by the early 1890 s in Fort s Théâtre d Art. Lugné -Poë started the Théâtre de l Œuvre after the closing of Fort s theater in They both embraced symbolist theater, supporting playwrights such as Maeterlink and Ibsen, where the set designs painted by the Nabis were intended to evoke emotional responses from the theatergoers. Furthermore, Félix Fénéon s office at La Revue Blanche was a gathering place for symbolist and Nabis artists. As Severini was to become acquainted with Fénéon and Fort early in his career in Paris, this trio (Lugné-Poë, Fénéon, and Fort) form an especially significant source of symbolist influence for the artist. 9 Maurice Denis, Cézanne, L Occident (September, 1907); Paul Sérusier, L Occident (December, 1908); De Gauguin et de Van Gogh au Classicisme, L Occident (May, 1909). For a discussion of Denis critical writings, see: Genova,

21 equivalents. These are capable of reproducing emotions or states of the spirit without it being necessary to provide the copy of the initial spectacle; thus for each state of our sensibility there must be a corresponding objective harmony capable of expressing it. 10 Sometime during , Lugné-Poë introduced Severini to the critic Félix Fénéon, an important figure in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Symbolist movement, and a long-time supporter of Neo-Impressionists, particularly of Georges Seurat. Fénéon was an important guide for Severini at this stage of his career, as Severini had declared Seurat his master soon after arriving in Paris. In his autobiography he explained his conscious emulation of Seurat: it was Seurat who first and most successfully established a balance between subject, composition and technique the modern world that Seurat wished to paint I unde rstood his importance as soon as I arrived in Paris I chose Seurat as my master for once and for all. 11 In all likelihood, Severini and Fénéon s relationship was more than one of casual acquaintanceship as they moved in the same artistic circles. It is therefore reasonable to presume that Fénéon would have discussed his theoretical writings on the transcendental nature of Neo-Impressionism, including Seurat s writings on color and line, with the artist. 12 Fénéon believed the divisionist technique of Neo-Impressionism was capable of capturing and expressing the essential nature of existence, writing...for them [the Neo - Impressionists], objective reality is simply a theme for the creation of a higher, 10 Maurice Denis, De Gauguin et de Van Gogh au Classicisme, L Occident (May, 1909); translated in Herschel B. Chipp, Theories of Modern Art. A Sourcebook by Artists and Critics, (Berkley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1968), Severini, Life, Marianne Martin, Carissimo Marinetti: Letters from Severini to the Futurist Chief, Art Journal (Winter 1981), ; 305. Martin suggests that Fénéon gave Severini Paul Signac s book D Eugène Delacroix au néo-impressionisme. However, Severini stated that Dufy first gave him this text. See: J.-P. Crespelle, Montmartre Vivant (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1964), 194. Nevertheless, Fénéon s personal relationships with Seurat, including his knowledge of his private writings, would have been important to Severini s understanding Neo-Impressionism and the development of his own Neo-Impressionist aesthetic. 12

22 sublimated reality, which becomes fused with their personalities. 13 These ideas of the transcendental potential of painting permeated Severini s dance imagery from the beginning and remained an important impulse in his work. Furthermore, echoes of Seurat s t heories on the emotional content of color and line, the luminosity of complementary colors, and the lasting impression of an image on the retina, are all found later in slightly altered form in the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painters and Severini s dr aft of his own manifesto, Art du fantastique dans le sacré (Peinture de la Lumière, de la Profondeur, du Dynamisme. Manifest futuriste.). 14 In 1908, Fénéon mounted a major Seurat retrospective at the Bernheim Jeune Gallery, which likely did not pass unseen by the young Italian artist. 15 Three years later in February 1912, through the efforts and support of Fénéon, the Futurists mounted their first major group exhibition at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery. It was also during these initial years in Paris that Severini met fellow Italian émigré Amadeo Modigliani and became involved with a group of artists who gathered regularly at the Lapin Agile, a small cabaret in Montmartre. 16 Among those who congregated there were Suzanne Valadon, her son Maurice Utrillo, Andrè Utter (whose 13 Félix Fénéon, Le Néo -Impressionisme, L Art Moderne (May 1, 1887), ; translated in Art in Theory , eds. Charles Harrison, Paul Wood, Jason Gaiger (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers 1998), Art in Theory, These ideas are proposed by Seurat in a letter of 1890 to Maurice Beaubourg, and are the synthesis of various ideas from Eugène Chevreul, H. Ogden Rood and Charles Henry. Although Marianne Martin does not believe that the Futurists could have known of Seurat s writing (Martin, Futurist Art and Theory, 58 n. 2), Fénéon s publication of the letter in 1914 makes possible the suggestion that he discussed such theories prior to publication. Had Fénéon discussed these ideas with Severini, it is possible that Severini would have related them to Boccioni who is the acknowledge author of the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painters. Furthermore, Seurat s ideas are set out in Paul Signac s book, D Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionisme which was published in Paris in Joan Ungersma Halperin, Félix Fénéon. Aesthete & Anarchist in Fin-de-Siècle Paris (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988), 120; 210. By this time, Fénéon had retired from his literary career and was in the second year of his position as director of modern art at the Bernheim-Jeune gallery. 16 Severini, Life, 31. Severini and Modigliani met in 1906, within a few months of Severini s a rrival in Paris. 13

23 portrait Severini painted in 1910), Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, André Salmon, Max Jacob, and Juan Gris. 17 Severini later recalled that the Agile was a place where young artists gathered to discuss Nietzsche and Bergson in their search for a pictorial vocabulary more expressive of the times in which they were living. 18 Most of these artists resided in close proximity to one another, including several in the same apartment building. Thus, a great exchange of ideas took place between artists through visits to one another s studios. 19 Braque and Severini frequently shared their progress, with Severini showing Braque works such as The Boulevard, The Milliner, and Pan-Pan. 20 The influence of Braque s Analytic Cubism is evident in these early Futur ist paintings as Severini adopted a similar compositional technique. By arranging deconstructed figures along various axes parallel to the picture plane, he created multiple viewpoints that denied a sense of spatial recession, much like that of Braque s A nalytic Cubist works. One of the most significant figures in Severini s career was Filippo Tommaso (F.T.) Marinetti, the founder and leader of Italian Futurism. A well-known poet and author, Marinetti first conceived Futurism as a literary movement, but soon broadened its scope to encompass all of the arts. Marinetti s symbolist credentials were established in the late nineteenth century under the influence of Jean Moréas and Gustave Kahn. Already a well-known poet, Marinetti joined the Symbolist movement after reading Moréas manifesto published in 1886 in the Parisian journal, Le Figaro, the same venue 17 Severini, Life,40-41; 62. Severini was introduced to Picasso in 1910 through Georges Braque. 18 Ibid., Severini, Life, Ibid., 62. Severini later recalled that Braque s simple and precise paintings fascinated him at thi s time. Severini was introduced to Braque through Raoul Dufy, as all three lived in an apartment building at 5 Impasse Guelma. However, Dufy and Braque apparently did not move into this building until 1911 although Severini implies in his autobiography that they were all three living there in See: Martin, Futurist Art and Theory, 77 n

24 he would use to launch Futurism. 21 Marinetti s poetry was published in Mercure de France, Paul Fort s Vers et Prose and Gil Blas, and he became an important link between French and Italian poets. In 1902 Marinetti declared Mallarmé to be the greatest poet of the nineteenth century, translating his poetry from French into Italian, and eventually publishing a compilation of his works in Marinetti s own symbolist journal, Poesia, regularly featured poetry from the Paris group of neo-symbolists, including Paul Fort, Rene Ghil, and Jules Romains. 22 Marinetti and Romains became acquainted through their mutual association with the L Abbaye de Créteil, which published Romains book La Vie Unanime in A favorable review of Romains book published in Poesia declared it to be a perfect sample of poems on the individual and collective psyche. 24 Marinetti and Romains agreed on a number of ideas, many of which became underlying concepts in the genesis of Futurism. Both men embraced, even venerated, technology, modernity, and the sensation of simultaneity generated by life in the modern city. Furthermore, they both subscribed to the belief that artists, being superior to laymen, operated on the level of visionaries or guides, capable of divining the transcendental nature of life s experiences 21 Günter Berghaus, The Genesis of Futurism: Marinetti s Early Career and Writings (Leeds: The Society for Italian Studies, 1995), Poesia ( ), ed. François Livi, (Napoli: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1992). 23 Peter Brooke, Albert Gleizes. For and Against the Twentieth Century (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001), 4-7. The Abbaye de Créteil was a commune on the outskirts of Paris established in 1906 by the poets Alexandre Mercereau, Charles Vildrac, René Arcos, and the artist Albert Gleizes. The goal of the Abbaye was a continuation of the late nineteenth-century Symbolist idea of integrating art with life. The Abbaye functioned until the end of 1908, with several writers and artists working to establish a self-sufficient community away from the commercialized art world of Paris where art and life would become symbiotically related to each other. The members of the Abbaye planned to support themselves financially by publishing and illustrating their own books and essays. However, by late 1908 the group disbanded in part due to financial difficulties and in part due to the diverse interests and goals of its members. For further information on the reciprocity of the relationship between Marinetti and Romains, see: Daniel Robbins, From Symbolism to Cubism: The Abbaye of Créteil, Art Journal 23, no. 2 ( ), ; and Martin, F uturism, Unanimism, Robbins suggests the term Unanime came from the symbolist poet Verhaeren s description of modern life as les Forces Unanimes. 24 Paolo Buzzi s review in Poesia IV, no. 8 (September 1908) is excerpted in Poesia,

25 and transmitting those sensations through their art. 25 As a consequence, Marinetti and Romains can be seen as supporters of the Symbolist goal of moving beyond objective sensory experience to a level where the apprehension of reality would rely more on a person s innate sense of intuition than solely on visual perception. However, the manner in which each man sought to promote his beliefs differed greatly. The revolutionary and violent manner of Marinetti contrasted sharply against the perceived optimism of Romains. Nevertheless, Marinetti extended to Romains an invitation to join the brotherhood of Futurism, but after an initial favorable response, Romains declined. 26 Jules Romains poetic/philosophical movement, Unanimism, influenced many avant-garde artists during this time including Severini. The tenets of Unanimism proposed that all people share in a universal collective consciousness, in which each person s thoughts and feelings become joined with those around them. 27 The experience of the collective consciousness would occur in group settings or situations, such as walking down a crowded boulevard, attending a wedding, or going to a nightclub. These experiences were thought to create a universal consciousness, where the individual becomes melded into the group of which they are a part. However, not everyone was capable of tapping into the collective con sciousness. Only those individuals with a higher intuitive capacity, such as artists and writers, would be able to access these communal sensations. By promoting the idea that this higher plane of communal consciousness or transcendental understanding was limited to certain members of society, 25 Martin, Futurism, Unanimism, P.A. Jannini, ed., La Fortuna del Futurismo (Rome: Bulzoni Editore, n.d.), 23. For Romains rejection of Futurism, see: Martin, Futurism, Unanimism, 259 n Dennis Boak, Jules Romains (New York: Twayne, 1974), 22. Jules Romains experienced the sensation of collective consciousness as he walked down the Rue d Amsterdam one day in October 1903, feeling himself in tune with the psyches of the people surrounding him on the boulevard. 16

26 these groups (Symbolism, Unanimism, and Futurism) bestowed artists with the responsibility of bringing the uninitiated to a higher plane of understanding through their artistic creations. Beginning in 1907, Romains poetry was published in Symbolist journals such as Mercure de France, Vers et Prose, and La Phalange. 28 While Romains was not specifically part of the neo-symbolist movement, readers of such journals might easily have interpreted his work as symbolist due to its appearance in those publications. Furthermore, his presence in well-known neo-symbolist circles, and his association with poets like Gustave Kahn, René Ghil, and Émile Verhaeren, combined with Guillaume Apollinaire s enthusiastic review of La Vie Unanime, made Romains poetry appear sympathetic with Symbolism. 29 Severini became aware of Unanimism sometime around 1910 and the impact was immediate. In The Boulevard of 1911 (Fig. 2), which is one of Severini s works most often discussed by scholars in terms of its Unanimist content, Severini seems to literally depict Romains poem Une autre âme s avance, where indistinct figures meld into the environment of the boulevard: What is this that transfigures the Boulevard?/ The gait of the passers by is hardly a physical one/ They are no longer making movements, but rhythms/ And I no longer need my eyes to see them. 30 Severini s palette of complementary colors, based on cool blues and purples accentuated by horizontal patches of warm orange, drives the interplay of interlocking triangles, creating a slow, pulsating rhythm between foreground and background elements. The 28 Kenneth Cornell, The Post-Symbolist Period. French Poetic Currents, (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1958), 74, Rosalind Williams, Jules Romains, Unanimisme, and the Poetics of Urban Systems, in Literature and Technology, eds. Mark L. Greenberg and Lance Schachterle, (London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1992), Jules Romains, La Vie Unanime (Paris: 1908). Romains poem translated in Christopher Butler, Early Modernism. Literature, Music, and Painting in Europe, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994),

27 dominant pyramidal structure that emanates from the center of the picture is suggestive of linear recession, yet it simultaneously denies this by the repetition of the pyramidal grid throughout the composition. The merging of figures into the surrounding environment seen in this small painting expresses the sense of the collective consciousness experienced by members of an urban society as the individual dissolves into the group. Instead of representing large office buildings and apartments, Severini chose instead to represent a tree-lined boulevard, which was very much a part of urban life in Paris. The patches of white throughout the composition may be read as snow while snowflakes are suggested across the upper portion of the canvas. Comparable to the boulevard scenes of the Impressionist painters, for example Claude Monet s Boulevard des Capucines of 1873 (Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City), or Camille Pissarro s Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning of 1897 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), Severini similarly represents a wintry Parisian boulevard. Although the triangular compositional pattern of the painting may be suggestive of a mountainous landscape, these areas actually create a tunnel-like sensation as the boulevard disappears into the distance and the strollers become engulfed in the surrounding environment. Severini s inclusion of treetop branches in the spaces between the triangular peaks at the top of the canvas further emphasizes this sensation. Moreover, the windmill-like structure in the upper left portion of the canvas recalls the famous Moulin Rouge cabaret. In the upper right portion of the canvas, a similar starburst element is evident, and painted in lighter color it is perhaps representative of the electric lamps that illuminated the Parisian streets. This painting is a precursor to Severini s next work, the monumental Pan Pan, in which he explores the unanimist experience generated by the vibrant atmosphere of a dance hall. 18

28 The philosophic poetry of Romains was considered by some to be a natural complement to the psychological philosophy of Henri Bergson, one of the most important and influential theorists of his time. 31 Bergson s theories of memory, durée, and élan vital provided a continual source of discussion among students, artists, and the Parisian intelligentsia who attended his standing room only public lectures at the College de France. 32 His texts were quickly translated into many languages, including a 1909 Italian translation by Giovanni Papini, an early Futurist collaborator. 33 Reviews and analyses of Bergson s philosophy, including comparisons to Symbolism, were regularly published in Parisian journals and newspapers. 34 Bergson s theories on intuition and duration corresponded to Romains Unanimism in the sense that both men believed people were innately connected to one another through a collective or universal psyche. 35 This experience was particularly apt to happen while participating in a communal event, such as walking along a busy boulevard, attending parties, weddings, and the like. In Bergson s theory of duration (durée), he addressed the issue of how a person experiences the passage of time. Believing that no object or being is by nature a static entity, he suggested that all objects exist in a constant state of forward motion, fluidly moving from one state of being to the next. Furthermore, according to Bergson, the traditional concept of time, which is broken down into discrete units of seconds, minutes, and hours, was scientifically developed by 31 Fanette Roche-Pézard, L Aventure Futuriste (Rome: École Française de Rome, Palais Farnèse, 1983), Mark Antliff, Inventing Bergson-Cultural Politics and the Parisian Avant-Garde (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993), 4, Butler, 199 n. 33. Filosofia dell Intuizione was published in Florence in See also: P.A.Y. Gunter, Henri Bergson: A Bibliography. Revised Second Edition (Ohio: Bowling Green State University, 1986), Gunter, Gunter provides entries for hundreds of articles and reviews of Bergson and his philosophies, too numerous to list here. 35 Martin, Futurism, Unanimism,

29 man in an effort to control the temporal world through logic and order. Bergson saw this as being vastly at odds with the natural state of a person s internal durée, in which one moment passes to the next uninterrupted; in other words no gaps or stops happen between the stages. 36 Therefore, durée is a concept of time that is in continual motion, which is diametrically opposed to the stasis inherently produced by the scientific division of time. According to both Bergson and Romains, time and space are not discrete entities within the collective consciousness of society, and both postulated a theory of life comprised of a dynamic, simultaneous flow of sensations and vibrations. These theories coincided with and encouraged a growing tendency within artistic circles, including Futurism, to express internal sensations, or states of mind, through visual representations of the external experiences that generated them. Bergson s specific influence on Futurist aesthetics and theory dates from the Manifesto of Futurist Painters of 1910 and continues through the end of Severini s Memories of a Journey (Fig. 3) has often been interpreted as a visual expression of Bergson s philosophy of the effects of memory upon durée. 38 Severini s acknowledgement of his debt to Bergson s An Introduction to Metaphysics, which he read while visiting Florence in 1911, confirms such an interpretation. 39 Bergson s 36 Henri Bergson, Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. T.E. Hulme, 2d ed., (Originally published in 1903 as Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale; reprint and translation, New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc. 1955), Virginia Spate, Orphism. The Evolution of Non-Figurative Painting in Paris (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 75. Spate notes the existence of a broadsheet the Futurists produced of a Belgian article that analyzed the affinities between Futurism and Bergsonism. 38 Martin, Futurism, Unanimism, 264; Antliff, See also: Christopher Green, Border Crossings, in Gino Severini: From Futurism to Classicism, exhibition catalogue, (London: Hayward Gallery Publishing, 1999), 26. Green argues that Boccioni introduced Severini to Bergson in his October 1911 visit to Paris. This seem highly unlikely since Bergson was known and often discussed in Severini s circles beginning in 1909, and it is more probable that they each became aware of Bergson at roughly the same time, although through different circumstances. 39 Denys Sutton, The Singularity of Gino Severini, Apollo 97, no. 135 (May 1973), ;